[CLOSED] Kerbin and Beyond: a Maturing Space Program

[Northstar1989]

The Raven Mk2 and Blackhawk Mk6 both have tentative burns planned out to send them out of the Mun's SOI and towards the edge of the Kerbin system (currently, the burns involve waiting for Kerbin's gravity to turn them towards Duna after exiting the Mun's SOI, but I'll see if I can't come up with some more efficient one-part burns with a little tweaking...) but I just wanted to add one little bit onto that last post before I run off to go do something...

The Valkyrie has collected its Duna Crew Re-entry Module, and is also preparing to set off for Duna in this (hopefully) final piece of my now very large flotilla...

It will bring 3 more Kerbals to Duna. The more the merrier!

I'll also be updating my version of NearFuture mod before the next set of burns- it supposedly has a few bugfixes, and since the Blackhawk utilizes NearFuture inline NERVA engines, it couldn't hurt...

Regards,

Northstar

Edited January 24, 2014 by Northstar1989

[Northstar1989]

OK, so I couldn't help myself. I hate time-warping when I could be doing something useful during that (Kerbal universe) time- and so I designed a new line of unmanned LFO tanker for liftoff from the KSC:

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It was my first attempt at a vessel that takes off from the KSC utilizing fuel tanks with a diameter larger than 5 meters, and it was mixed success... It CAN make it to my 350 km space station with a *BIT* of fuel left over- but not much. So it's actually more useful as a RocketParts delivery system (after the fuel tanks have been recycled into RocektParts) than as a fuel tanker.

Part of the problem was the very low TWR at liftoff, causing a lot of the fuel to be wasted fighting gravity. This was inevitable since the largest engines available to me are the 5 meter NovaPunch2 engines... I can foresee two solutions to this- one is to install additional mods allowing bigger engines (there's a mod out there somewhere that allows procedurally-generated engines I think, and StretchySRB's does allow procedurally-generated boosters at least- which I think can stretch in width as well as length), and the other is to add MOAR BOOSTERS! Actually, the original design as seen here didn't have any, as I was having so much trouble controlling the craft and stopping the darn thing from imploding on the launchpad (once a vessel reaches a certain critical mass, KSP starts treating it almost like a little black hole- OK, really, it's just the Kraken...), but I'm sure I'll figure out how to add a bunch of boosters (solid or liquid) eventually...

Oh, and by the way, the fuel tanker utilized beamed power from my Microwave Power Station to help power its three *HUGE* SAS wheels (125 SAS force EACH), possibly saving a bit of weight on the final design... That's what the big dish on the top was.

Anyways, the Blackhawk will be making its transfer to Duna soon. I just thought I'd keep you guys in the loop on what I was doing in the meantime, so my next post can focus more closely on my spaceplanes...

Regards,

Northstar

Edited January 24, 2014 by Northstar1989

[Northstar1989]

I apologize for going one way, then another, than back to the first with my plans- but it looks like the Raven will be making a Minmus refueling stop after all. Considerable toying with Maneuver Nodes proved there was no way to get it to Duna with 1028 m/s Delta-V at such a suboptimal transfer window without cutting it EXTREMELY close, with a high likelihood of missing the planet altogether due to steering losses...

However, I don't have any unmanned LFO tankers nearby, my existing heavy unmanned LFO tanker design has too short of a range (the design is greatly in need of refinement), and the Munar Spacedock was almost completely out of RocketParts and fuel- eliminating the possibility of building a tanker from there:

That's when it occurred to me that I could utilize the Early Spacedock I had reluctantly slated for recycling earlier for this purpose. Like I considered doing before, it will be moved to a low Minmus orbit (the thrust needed to obtain sufficient TWR to maintain almost all orbital velocity when leaving Minmus' incredibly weak gravity-well is pathetically small), where it will serve as a refueling station and point of departure for occasional missions.

This will allow me to refuel the Raven Mk2 near Minmus, and will also give me somewhere to stash additional Kerbals from future manned LFO tanker missions until the unmanned design can be sufficiently refined...

Of course the Munar Spacedock/Early Spacedock had almost no fuel- so where then to find the fuel to transfer the Early Spacedock to Minmus orbit and still have fuel left over to top off the Raven?

Why from the Munar Science Module. I suppose most of you have forgotten about it by this point, but I haven't. Before KSP-I switched electrolysis away from the Science Lab to the new ISRU Refinery and altered the heat radiation system such as to render its reactors barely-functional, the Munar Science Module managed to refine close to 7000 units of Oxidizer from Munar regolith. It also managed to fill up its Aluminum Hybrid boosters with Aluminum- which is good for additional impulse to get it into Munar orbit. Thus, I decided with its now relatively-full fuel reserves, it would be an excellent candidate to refuel the Early Spacedock to usable levels.

Both the Munar Science Module and my two manned LFO tankers in Munar orbit will transfer their fuel and crew to the two spacedocks (and eventually be recycled for much-needed RocketParts). The Early Spacedock will then transfer to Minmus, where it should have sufficient fuel to refuel the Raven Mk2. Here the Munar Science Module is on ascent from Munar orbit and making adjustment burns for a quick (4 hour) rendezvous with the two Munar spacedocks:

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The Valkyrie has also begun its transfer to Dunar orbit. The maneuver nodes have undergone some optimization, and in the resultant shuffling of transfer order, it will be the first to depart. Unfortunately, I don't have time at the moment to carry through the spaceplane transfers as well, so those will have to wait until a later play session. Still, I got a few good pictures of the transfer burn. A smaller adjustment burn will be necessary later on:

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Regards,

Northstar

Edited January 24, 2014 by Northstar1989

[Northstar1989]

Oi! The first of the spaceplanes (the Blackhawk Mk6) has finally begun its Duna transfer!

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Also, I began moving those LFO tankers I mentioned before to the Munar Spacedock. I've kept it down to just a couple pictures... They LOOK almost the same, so I'm hoping I didn't accidentally screenshot the same tanker twice...

Last, but not least, continued optimization of my Unmanned Heavy LFO Tanker has resulted in a SSTO variant. This thing is MASSIVE, but eh, all that mass will make for a lot of RocketParts when a (ultra-heavy variant) Scrapper Ship gets to it. It's also a flying lag machine, though, so I'll probably redesign it as a standard LFO tanker in the future. Mostly, I just wanted to get a bit of practice designing rocket SSTO's, since I'm probably going to be utilizing a lot of them on my Mun and Dunar outposts/colonies...

I present, my first-ever rocket SSTO:

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It looks like with current technology I can design LFO/HydrogenGas hybrid SSTO's for Kerbin usage- but for the Mun or Duna I could probably get by without the HydrogenGas or the huge 3.75 meter generator that running eight Plasmodynamic Thrusters at full thrust requires (it weighs proportionally less relative to its generation capacity than a 1.25 or 2.5 meter generator. A 3.75 meter variant weighs less than eight 1.25 meter variants. Still, it *IS* big and heavy...)

For those curious, the reactor is only a 1.25 meter Thorium variant, and I could have even got by with a .625 meter Uranium- all it needs to do is spin the generator up between burns (the generator runs off stored energy during the burns- the fission reactors could never generate fast enough at reasonable weight), and it has as long as I can afford to time-warp to do that...

Also, there are 49 engines on the bottom as well as 8 Plasmodynamic Thrusters and 24 of the large stock radial boosters on the side (hence the flying lag machine- I had no idea my computer could handle so many, though admittedly it did almost freeze up several times doing it...) 48 of the ones on the bottom are the heavier and more powerful Aerospike engines that I think come with the NovaPunch2 pack... The 49th is the heaviest engine that NovePunch2 offers- weighing in at a massive 10,000 kN of thrust...

The top section, for size reference, is the largest NovaPunch2 five-meter fuel tank. The bottom is an *extremely* stretched StretchyTank (the type that can be stretched both in terms of height and radius). The vessel mass before liftoff exceeded 2 Megatons. It's gigantic for weight-efficiency (KSP-I generators become more efficient for their mass with increased size) as well as lifting-capacity, but, in theory it's an infinitely re-usable way to get fuel to low orbits, provided enough parachutes for after re-entry (though my computer would DIE with that many parts loaded...) It also pushed the very limits of what the game could handle without the vessel exploding due to lack of structural integrity and/or the Kraken bugs, and the number of engines I could cram onto a single rocket (in fact, the TWR at liftoff was pathetically low- reducing efficiency).

Regards,

Northstar

Edited January 25, 2014 by Northstar1989

[Northstar1989]

The Blackhawk has finished its Dunar transfer. It is now en-route on a 82.5 day transfer orbit.. As that cost over 2000 m/s Delta-V, clearly I was wise to refuel the Raven at Minmus- even if it could have somehow made it to Duna at such a suboptimal time, its transfer would have been EXTREMELY slow (as if 82 days isn't fairly slow...)

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After some more messing around with fuel tankers in Munar orbit, the Raven will be departing for Minmus soon.

Speaking of which, I docked the first of my fuel tankers with the Munar/Early spacedocks:

Regards,

Northstar

Edited January 25, 2014 by Northstar1989

[Northstar1989]

Ok, so I docked my second LFO Tanker with the spacedocks orbiting the Mun.

I discovered I now had enough fuel to completely fill the Early Spacedock, so I've already prepared it for its journey to Minmus by filing its fuel tanks, loading over the 3 Kerbals who were on the LFO Tankers (two of them are decently intelligent, and will make good scientists in the built-in lab), as well as the tiny quantity of Rocketparts (only about a ton) left on board the Munar Spacedock- which would be usable to build a Lunar Escape System style lander for Minmus (no cockpit, just two ladders to hold two Kerbals, with panels underneath them...) or a tiny radiator addition to the Early Spacedock which could be floated nearby and connected by KAS to allow the nuclear reactor to be used to run the Science Lab more often... (currently it can only be used with long cooldown cycles, as it generates heat faster than the radiators can disperse it when active.)

Here's a couple screenshots. The first is just before abandoning the second LFO Tanker shortly after draining all its resources (the Scrapper Ship will later recycle it for RocketParts), the second is after, and shows the first LFO Tanker floating serenely in the background:

The Early Spacedock will be departing for Minmus at its next transfer window, as will the Raven Mk2- which will be refueled there after arrival in preparation for the final leg of its journey to Duna. The plan, as before, is to place the Early Spacedock in a low orbit around Minmus. The low gravity, lack of biomes, and lack of liquid water to render on Minmus should all combine to allow me decent framerate even with the Early Spacedock's relatively high part-count for a space station...

In hindsight, I should have just transferred the Raven directly from Kerbin orbit to Minmus- but I had to at least *try* plotting a Maneuver node directly to Duna from the Mun. Navigation can be as much as art as a science- and with no definitive programs, charts, or table yet released by the player community to predict Delta-V requirements for a suboptimal interplanetary transfer, I had no way of knowing if it would work other than experience...

Regards,

Northstar

EDIT: Looks like I was wrong about the whole Minmus still not having biomes thing. A quick visit to the Wiki confirmed that for me. It's late here, and I haven't been keeping closely enough on top of the latest updates, so... The spacedock with still be going to Minmus regardless- getting the Raven to Duna is a top priority.

Edited January 25, 2014 by Northstar1989

[Northstar1989]

It was a sad day for Jerbo Kerman.

He looked back at the Munar Science Module- his home for the past four weeks.

Today, she was finally being decommissioned. And as Jerbo stood, or rather floated, on the deck of the Munar Spacedock, watching her float away, he couldn't help but feel a twinge of nonstalgia.

Jerbo had made many good memories there. Since he and Donely had landed and begun their primary mission of preparing large quantities of oxygen for the Munar Spacedock, and secondary goal of performing research, the two had become close friends. At first, Doneley grated a little on Jerbo's nerves, but over time stuck in close quarters with his teammate, he had come to appreciate his camaraderie and even sought to understood Doneley as an equal.

Now, their time on the Science Module, and Jerbo suspected their mission as well, was coming to an end. In maybe another week's time, he guessed, he would probably see a relief crew coming on board the next fuel tanker. And once the combined crews had managed to finish constructing the new crew recovery vehicle they had already been ordered to begin work on from the scrap parts of two earlier fuel tankers and the Science Module, it was highly likely Jerbo and Doneley would be the first Kerbals hitching a ride on its re-entry capsule back to Kerbin.

Right now, Jerbo was praying for delays in the construction of the recovery vehicle- perhaps even a reassignment to the new Munar outpost they had also begun constructing equipment for. Of course, he knew how Mission Control would feel about that- no Kerbal should spend more than a couple months in near-zero gravity, to avoid long-term side-effects, if it could be helped, according to Northstar Kerman's official policy. Thus, fresh Kerbals would likely occupy the Munar outpost- though Jerbo had heard rumors that the new crew were being trained on how to maintain their bodies in peak physical condition for extended stays of several months on the Munar surface...

Jerbo wondered if the rumors were true. He also wondered if he and Doneley would be re-assigned to Duna instead: there was gravity there right? Though he knew even that wasn't likely- the high radiation dose he and Doneley had received during their extended stay on the Munar surface was already putting them at risk for the development of several disease if he didn't get some time back on Kerbin to receive the KSC's special cutting-edge regenerative treatments first. The new Munar outpost would be built with crew quarters underground, in depleted mining tunnels- which would begun to be dug soon after the first equipment landings for the outpost. Too bad Jerbo probably wouldn't get to see any of it...

Jerbo cast one last glance at the Science Module, slowly floating away, and a tear came to his eye. Though this wouldn't be the last time he would see it, it would be the last time he would see it in its former glory- soon they would be ripping metal plates from the exterior, and stealing every bolt, screw, and other part they could find, for construction of the new recovery vehicle and outpost equipment... The Science Module, like the tankers, would eventually be entirely recycled into new vessels and new equipment, down to the last rivet- no trace of it would remain.

OOC: I hope you guys liked this bit of role-playing. Part of it was my attempt my meandering thoughts on what exactly to do with these two Kerbals, when I get the chance- of which I'm still really not sure. Another was attempting to explain many things that can't be accounted for in-game: such as how my Kerbals can make trip after trip into outer space, with no apparent retirement in sight (I account this to futuristic regenerative medicine treatments designed to repair the damage from extraplanetary radiation, and even destroy/replace diseased or cancerous cells. Such treatments are at least a century off in real life: but so is antimatter power- which I will develop within a few game years I'm sure; and the kind of political unity and support to launch vessels in the scale and quantity of any normal KSP player's space program, nevertheless my own...)

For the record: no, my Munar outpost won't actually be built partially-underground in-game: I don't think any modders have developed nearly the kind of technology to make this doable for the common player yet- and likely never will. Rather, it's just my explanation for something that will be presumed to be happening in the background, as I mine ton after ton of Kethane and Ore out of the Munar geology (something's got to take up the space left behind- whether eventual cave-ins or filler material. Why not seal portions of it, and utilize it for pressurized and unpressurized living and storage/industrial space instead, which had the side-benefit for being protected from radiation and meteorites?)

Anyways, here are the pictures of my refueling the Munar Spacedock from the Munar Science Module- which I now consider to be decommissioned:

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Regards,

Northstar

[Northstar1989]

"Mission Control, this is Minmus Spacedock, we have a problem" came Dudcott Kerman's distressed sounding voice across the communications link between Kerbin and the newly rechristened "Minmus Spacedock" (previously known as the "Early Spacedock")

A moment of silenced followed...

"Minmus Spacedock, this is Mission Control; Northstar Kerman speaking. What seems to be the problem?"

Dudcott took a deep breath.

"The engines, they can't be started sir. Sensors indicate that the reactor core temperature is still several hours away from the reactor safely being able to be manually re-ignited."

Northstar Kerman took a deep breath as well. He had not foreseen this problem. Earlier estimated had indicated the reactor core temperature would reach safe levels for reactivation just before the spacdock's transfer burn...

"Affirmative Minmus Spacedock. We acknowledge your problem. Please remain prepared to re-activate the reactor as soon as it reaches safe temperature levels. We might have to try for a Minmus transfer on the next pass around the Mun."

OOC: It seems the reactor didn't cool quite as quickly as I anticipated from its last activation cycle. The largest KSP-Interstellar reactors have much better power:weight ratio than the smaller ones, but one of their unfortunate downsides seems to be that they take much longer for Decay Heating to terminate after a shutdown... It's a minor hiccup in my mission plan (the reactor is *very* close to safe re-ignition temperatures, based on current rate of cooling only a few game-hours away), but one I thought you guys should know about.

In other news, the Raven Mk2 made its Minmus transfer burn without so much as an unexpected squeak in the spacecraft, and I performed an RCS-only adjustment on the Eagle Transfer Stage's trajectory to bring its Duna periapsis in from about 10 million meters to about 100 km.

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Regards,

Northstar

[Northstar1989]

While I waited for the Minmus Spacedock to come around for its next transfer window (after about 30-35 minutes, the reactor reached a safe reset temperature- I was AFK when it happened, but I had checked at about 30 minutes and it still wasn't ready...) I've been busy. OR, rather, my Kerbals have been busy:

Guessed what that is? Yep, it's a helicopter, boss. My first one ever too. It's electric, so it might even fly on Duna!

Its altitude ceiling on Kerbin is "only" about 9000 meters, which equates to a little *above* Duna sea-level in terms of atmospheric pressure. However, due to the way KSP models lift and thrust, a helicopter has no "lift", only upward thrust. That's not entirely accurate from a real-world perspective, but whatever.

What that means is, the thrust counteracts gravity, and if it's great enough, the helicopter hovers or climbs. Since Duna's gravity is only 30% of Kerbin's, the helicopter should be able to climb much higher- theoretically infinitely high if the helicopter's thrust didn't fall off as the atmosphere gets thinner, but since I don't actually know the equation for helicopter rotor thrust (unlike lift, which simply increases as e^speed in KSP) I couldn't tell you how much higher it can climb. It MIGHT be able to climb to 5000 meters, it might climb to 500 meters. But either way, it can AT LEAST make it off the ground there, since it can hover at an altitude on Kerbin where the air is slightly thinner than Duna's at sea-level.

So, I might try taking a helicopter to Duna. This early prototype has shown me it's at least possible. And, a helicopter is MUCH less unwieldy than getting a plane (one that can't function as a spaceplane, at least) to Duna. I'll probably play around with the design a bit more, first, and see if I can improve on it- but I'll definitely be trying for it sooner or later...

Regards,

Northstar

P.S. A design note for those of you looking to make you own helicopters with Firespitter: the simplest designs are two-rotor craft like this one, but the rotors *HAVE TO* face in opposite directions- otherwise the helicopter WILL spin wildly around and CRASH. The helicopter rotors have an innate polarity to them, and that polarity determines the direction of the torque they exert on the craft. You can either balance this with two rotors roughly equidistant from the center of mass, or you can add a tail-rotor to a one-rotor (or imbalanced multi-rotor) design to cancel the torque. I prefer the two-rotor solution because it means that all my lift/thrust is pointed straight UP, increasing altitude-ceiling and lifting capacity, instead of wasting some of it just to cancel my torque...

Edited January 29, 2014 by Northstar1989

[Northstar1989]

I got so excited with building my first helicopter I just kept rolling out new designs until I got something I was satisfied with...

I present, the 'Hornet':

This is yet another craft I'm going to take to Duna. But first, the specs:

Crew Capacity: 4 Kerbals

Altitude Ceiling: >12,000 m

Max Landspeed: >240 m/s

Cargo Capacity: 0.5 tons of LiquidFuel

Note that helicopters, unlike jet planes, fly *faster* in thicker atmosphere, and *slower* in thinner atmosphere. The Hornet won't fly very fast on Duna under rotor power alone- hence the reason for the small KSP-I thermal rocket nozzle on one end, so it can get places more quickly in Duna's thin atmosphere (not coincidentally, KSP-I thermal rockets achieve MASSIVELY better ISP in thinner atmosphere- on Duna, I can expect ISP values well in excess of 1000). Despite appearances, it's not actually a very powerful rocket engine- it only produces 0.4 kN of thrust with the helicopters rotors also active on Kerbin.

It's a tiny little bugger- it weighs less than 3 tons minus the fuel (for reference, a Hitchhiker Storage Container weighs 2.5 tons), so I should EASILY be able to build the Hornet into the top stage of a rocket to Duna (also unlike most plane designs, it has an entirely unoccupied attachment node at one end- so it can easily attach to a rocket via docking port or decoupler).

Expect to see news on that launch soon (probably sometime while I'm waiting for the next maneuver node to get the Raven refueled and on its way to Duna).

Regards,

Northstar

Edited January 29, 2014 by Northstar1989

[Northstar1989]

OOC: This is going to be a long post, but stick with it guys (I've also added some dialogue to spice things up). I've got quite a few things going on or planned in my Kerbal Space Agency missions right now...

Maller Kerman gazed out the window and sighed.

There was a certain subtle beauty about the slow rotation of the station about its axis that he could never seem to capture, no matter how often he got out on EVA and took pictures of it...

After a short spacewalk to reactivate the ship's nuclear reactor (that still wasn't half as short as he hoped- Maller shuddered at all the radiation he must have been exposed to over those two minutes so high in space above the Mun), Maller had hurried back to the science module he had taken up residence in and strapped himself in for a nearly equally long burn that slammed him back unexpectedly hard against his seat (those scientists at Mission Control managed to get a bit more power out of the reactor- and Maller wasn't entirely happy with the results...) as the Minmus Station made its transfer out of Munar orbit and towards its new permanent position around its namesake...

"This thing could easily serve as an interplanetary vessel", Maller thought. "Good thing those buffoons at Mission Control haven't figured it out yet."

Soon, Maller and the rest of the crew returned to their routine- reading, exercising, and even reading the occasional e-mail from home: all waiting out their journey to Minmus orbit, and the equally monotonous routine being stationed there would entail.

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OOC: It looks like KSP-Interstellar re-balanced the fission reactors and thermal rocket nozzles a bit since I last gave the Early Spacedock's engines a try. Their thrust is now a solid 500 kN, and their ISP a full 1000 on LFO Mode! (even higher in LiquidFuel-only mode: and in either the 3.75 meter variants beat out stock NERVA's by a long shot...) Additionally, the WasteHeat code seems to have been fixed- its radiators now dissipate at a reasonable rate again, seemingly capable of keeping the Early Spacedock's reactors in check at a reasonable WasteHeat level (the code seemed to be broken before- heat dissipation was not increasing with increasing WasteHeat levels). as such, I see no reason not to re-tool the thing as an interplanetary "Mothership" after all- the main qualm I had with the thing before was the poor performance of its engines and radiators, and both seem to be fixed. The part count is higher than ideal for a permanent space station where I'll have to repeatedly have to put up with the resultant docking lag, but quite reasonable for a mobile spacecraft- as most of the extra parts in some way improve the stability of the craft during burns... (it's actually one of the most stable space ships I've ever built by far...) Plus, I can haul it out to Jool and use it to build a set of outposts somewhere like Laythe without the need for a tanker, a tug, or any kind of additional supply vessels... All it needs is for me to top off its fuel tanks and equip it with a moderate load of RocketParts before departure- the ship can be recycled and replaced with a smaller non-mobile spacedock when additional parts are needed for the colony...

Northstar Kerman, meanwhile, sat back in his office chair. "A little stiff", he though "But it's important to maintain focus and discipline."

Since the beginning of the Duna colonization effort, Northstar had to admit he had gotten a little carried away with side-projects. A helicopter here, a fuel tanker there- he had even toyed with the idea of setting up an additional launch facility amid the peaks of the mountains to the west of the Kerbal Space Center to reduce the fuel requirements and raise the payload fractions when getting rockets to orbit, a project which would required a lot of heavy airlifting and careful base design.

His latest mission, though, could be called less of a distraction. Perhaps even useful. After weeks of launching interplanetary spaceplanes (when rockets and specialized planes without ascent systems would be faster, have higher cargo capacity, and be easier ways of accomplishing their designated tasks), Mission Control had actually realized something USEFUL they could send for the future colonists at Duna...

Lithium. And lots of it. Some low-pressure Argon tanks built for use with pulsed inductive thrusters too. But most importantly several tons of Lithium.

Northstar had no idea whether the colonist might eventually be able to locate local supplies of Lithium on Duna. But he knew it wouldn't be easy. With more than enough to worry about setting up a functional mining infrastructure and fuel production systems, he knew the last thing they needed to be worrying about was digging some hard to find alkali metals out of the ground. Hard science fiction writers has written about some planets called "Earth" and "Mars", and he knew there, at least Lithium was a lot easier to come by on Earth then Mars- the more Kerbin-like planet of the two. Something about the higher concentration of lighter elements on the more Kerbin-like planet came to memory...

Northstar also remembered recently overhearing a conversation between two engineers mentioning something about the high utility of Lithium for plasma thrusters if they could ever get a powerful enough Microwave Transmission system in operation around Duna... Come to think of it, thoguht Northstar, they also mentioned something about using it to breed Tritium for the fusion reactors they were sure were only a few months or years away...

Regardless, Northstar had work to do. And Eugene Kerman had just walked in the door.

"Eugene, good to see you again. I thought you had retired. What such a great man to my humble office?"

"Don't be too self-deprecating" came Eugene's reply. "I've heard you've been doing some pretty innovate stuff here of late. Bigger rockets than we ever launched in my day. an entire armada of ships to Duna these past few weeks. And did I hear correctly something about developing a helicopter that could even fly on Duna?"

"Oh, that" said Northstar. "I thought such a practical man as yourself wouldn't approve," Northstar paused a moment in thought. "I mean, what's the point of building something like that when we've already sent off two spaceplanes, a standard plane, and enough supplies to send an entire giant colony ship back this way if the colonists wanted or something happened to wipe us out here?"

"You know the answer to that" said Eugene. "Why are you even asking me? Feeling hard on yourself of late?"

Northstar was a little taken aback by this response. "Why would we need a craft type that travels at a fraction of the speed of a plane, has a much smaller lifting capacity, and is absolutely incapable of making it into space?"

"Don't play dumb with me young man" said Eugene, serious now. "How many orbital cargo or passenger drops do you know of that land exactly on-target, especially when relying mostly on parachutes to conserve fuel and only aided by a tiny rocket engine whose fuel is mostly for last-minute deceleration?" Northstar genuinely considered this a moment, but Eugene didn't leave him long to think. "Well?"

"But why would we need a helicopter for that? Wouldn't a plane be faster?"

Eugene was actually a little bit irritate now. "You remember the days when our space program spent most of its time flying around in the atmosphere back here on Kerbin, don't you?" demanded Eugene. "Do you remember how HARD it was to try and land our planes on the sides of mountaintops? Do you remember how many Kerbals we stranded in damaged jet planes up there trying?" Northstar was starting to see his point, but said nothing... "And do you remember the last topographical map you looked at of Duna? Most of the place is mountains!" Norsttar silently nodded in agreement.

"A plane's great for when you want to get somewhere really fast- but most unguided orbital drops are bound to land somewhere in the midst of a mountain range there- the sizes of which make Kerbin's peaks look like foothills!" Northstar waited patiently for Eugene to finish. "The only way we're going to ever retrieve 90% of the stuff we drop there is with rovers or something that can take off vertically. And a 'copter is much faster and can simply fly above slopes that a rover couldn't even DREAM of tackling without the aid of a grappling hook." Northstar nodded again. "NOW do you see why we need helicopters on Duna? Otherwise, our giant colony supply ships are going to end up seeding nothing but a really dense scattering of pretty monuments across the mountaintops of Duna for our planes to circle around searching vain for a decent place to land, once they finally unpack the drop-pods from the construction ship you sent up there."

"How did you know about my plans for getting the supplies down to the surface?" Northstar asked, surprised. "I told nobody about that but my engineers."

"The ears have walls around here these days young man" came Eugene's reply, the twinkling of his eyes a sharp contrast to the magnificent gray of his aging scalp. "It's a good idea if you ask me- you risk too much trying to land one of the interstellar heavier ships directly on the planetary surface. If the engines fail, the parachutes don't deploy, or one of those simply hits the ground a bit too hard on impact; you're not going to have a colony on Duna anymore- you're going to have the biggest and most expensive rescue mission you've ever heard of, the end of your career, and the most magnificent fireball you've ever seen."

"True. I've always said, don't put all your eggs in one basket."

"-or your Kerbals in one lander" Eugene interrupted. "Which reminds me of the time one of our landers ran out of fuel on the way back up from the Mun, and both the crew members had to bail out an EVA it. Do you remember the poor Kerbal who ended up burning too far off-course when they finally pulled him out of his suit not long after his oxygen ran out? He was blue in the face- and they say he was never quite as bright of wit again after that, if you know what I mean..."

"Enough reminiscing Eugene" said Northstar, very matter-of-fact. "So what are we going to do to get the poor Kerbals back if re-assigning the Minmus Spacedock to Laythe (after refueling the Raven) goes wrong? If you have eyes and ears in the walls, you must have heard of this one, or seen something of my plans?"

"Now hold on a second there young man" said Eugene. "I said I hear things- I didn't say I'd seen any of your blueprints. What makes you think I even have the slightest idea what your 'Minmus Sapcedock' even looks like?"

"Come on, old man" insisted Northstar. "I know you've heard about this one. You even took part in drawing up the early plans for this particular spacedock personally, before handing off the mission to younger men like myself."

"You're correct indeed, green one" said Eugene. "Tell me, did they keep my idea for the radial fuel tank attachments near the engines? I imagine that would have been a sight of beauty to look at if it ever made it to space..."

"We did indeed- Maller Kerman tells me it takes his breath away to see them serenely spinning about the craft every time he gets far enough away from the vessel on spacewalks... But you didn't answer my question- how could I possibly rescue to Kerbals if things go wrong?"

"You couldn't" answered Eugene. "But don't worry, they're Kerbals, they can handle a little risk... Besides, they've got more than enough metal making up the body of that thing. Unless the craft completely gets torn apart during the aerocapture with Jool, they should have more than enough metal there to fashion a few lifeboats out of any debris if the craft breaks, and make it down to Laythe's surface. As long as they remember to grab a few days of Kerbal snacks, and save some of the oxygen, they can go into that deep hibernation we've trained all our Kerbonauts for- and they'll be fine until help arrives in a year or two."

Northstar pondered this. "You're right- I get far too cautious sometimes these days. I'll make sure to remind the Kerbonauts that they'll be just like the brave Munar explorers of old- off to explore new frontiers. I'm sure they'll understand"

"You know as well as I do that whole 'new frontier' stuff is just a load of wishy-washy that does about as much to help Kerbalkind as a Kerbonaut who can't pilot. The truth is we're not accomplishing anything if we can't set up some kind of long-term presence outside of the bounds of our planet. But you go on feeding them that stuff, and I'm sure they'll eat it right out of your hand..."

"Right" muttered Northstar to himself. "Should've known the head of a space program that sent up a permanent fuel depot before it set its first footsteps on the Mun would be a huge cynic..." Then, aloud "Alright Eugene, it was great talking to you, but I've got orbital maneuvers to direct. I'll catch you on the flip side old man, here, let my assistant buy you a cup of coffee", and with that, Northstar opened the office door and ushered over his able assistant.

"Buy this man a cup of our strongest stuff- he looks like he's tired. And make sure to listen to all hist stories even if they bore you."

And with that, the elderly and glaringly-youthful Kerbal strode out of his office together, leaving Northstar to his thoughts...

OOC: I know it was SUPER long, but I hope you guys enjoyed this latest update. By the way, here are the promised pictures of the Lithium/Argon supply ship, with the 'Hornet' helicopter coupled to the front. I call her, the "Duna Supplemental Equipment Vehicle." I hope you guys enjoy the screenshots!

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Regards,

Northstar

[Northstar1989]

Bill Kerman sat in the cockpit of the Light Munar Explorer, preparing for a fresh mission to the Mun.

In his months on the Kerbal Space Agency astronaut rotation, it had been several since he could remember any Munar launches like this.

So, as the countdown ended, and the engines throttled up, he was excited. He was going to set foot on the Mun! He thought how jealous the Kerbals would be back home...

The Light Munar Explorer climbed steadily, and soon began its gravity turn, and Bill settled back into his seat, waiting for the G forces to let up as the rocket finished its burn.

But suddenly, there was trouble. Bill heard a loud *SCREACH* sound, and suddenly felt himself experiencing weightlessness except for a slight tendency of his limbs to be pulled towards the vessel walls.

Quickly looking out the window, Bill didn't have to wait long to see what had happened. The command pod was rapidly spinning about its axis, and the upper stage had suddenly separated into several pieces. The rocket engine that had been propelling him shot off into the distance, with its fuel tank still attached... What's more, their main parachute had detached with the tiny exposed lunar lander! (based on earlier designs for a "Lunar Escape System")

In a hurry, Bill and the other Kerbals tightened their space suits, and hurried out the escape hatch- not trusting their lives to the two tiny radial parachutes still attached to the command module.

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Soon, Bill and the Kerbals were jetting towards their only hope using their EVA packs- the lander itself, which still had a functional engine and control system from appearances. A simple detachment of the main parachute from the rear would free up the engine for orbital circularization (neither Bill nor the other Kerbals trusted it to remain attached at deployment by nothing but a tiny 0.625 meter decoupler. Further, the ladder/descent platform combinations were designed for G-forces the opposite direction from the parachute- even the initial drogue deployment would likely send them hurtling off during re-entry, assuming the heat didn't kill them...)

However, minutes later, it become apparent that only Lury Kerman was on course, and would make it to the lander before re-entry. And then, much to his horror, Bill heard him radio that he had run out of jetpack fuel just before managing to get close enough to grip onto the ladder...

Bill screamed into his commlink to vent anger, but he knew it would be no use. He and the rest of the Kerbals would be plummeting to their deaths...

Suddenly, Bill woke up in a cold sweat, only to discover it had all just been a dream. Glancing at the clock to his side, he discovered the Light Munar Explorer's launch was still a few hours away. "Better get to the KSC and get suited up", Bill thought.

A couple hours later, Bill was informed that the launch would be delayed several hours for re-fitting of the vehicle. Apparently simulations had revealed a structural weakness in the attachment of the upper stage to its engine and the stage below that would be likely to cause rapid unplanned disassembly. The engineers would be replacing the connection with a stronger decoupler, and expected the new design would hold up just fine...

"What a prophetic dream" Bill thought...

OOC: Technically, this mission actually happened as described in Bill's dream. But attempts to re-load the quicksave I thought I had taken just before disboarding the first Kerbal from the capsule (I actually did this in case I burned the Kerbals' jetpacks in the wrong direction, being unable to aim in anything but 45-degree increments due to the unrealistic limitations of the keyboard controls after all, or at least my lack of understanding on how to reconfigure the controls to allow me to re-orient the Kerbals in any direction other than parallel to the horizon... I had forgotten about the radial parachutes, however- so on reload I probably would have noticed them, and only had to burn the Kerbal in the 1-man service module to the lander instead of trying for 3 at once from the Odin...) revealed that the last SUCCESSFUL quicksave- in which I held F9 long enough- was on the launchpad at the KSC before launch...

The whole structural failure appears to have resulted from using a wimpy 2.5 meter mechanical decoupler instead of a standard Rockomax version, in order to save weight. The 2.5 meter mechanical decouplers are lighter than their explosive counterparts, but can't sustain nearly as many G-forces before failures like this tend to occur... The design worked fine until fuel weight dipped low enough that the acceleration at full throttle became too high- causing rapid unplanned disassembly, exaggerated greatly by the centripetal force of the rapid spin it induced. I've had similar failures much earlier in my KSP career, in previous saves- but never nearly lost a Kerbal to them before- saved only by a quicksave like this... (technically, the radial parachutes could have easily saved the 3 of them in the Odin command capsule, and with only one to focus on I could have easily gotten the last Kerbal to the lander by EVA- which had more than enough fuel to *quickly* make it to the nearest space station...)

Regardless, I've redesigned the vessel with a lighter payload (crew capacity reduced from 4 to 3, mainly) and stronger decoupler, so I don't expect this to happen again. Oh, and I gave the tiny lander even more fuel and some scientific instruments (the antenna will stay with the Odin command pod, as I won't be able to transmit-spam anymore in 0.23, which I've had installed for some time now but not yet used the science system in... I'll still be using an antennna, as I'm not sure exactly how many experiments I can store in a command pod for return from different biomes...)- although the last one Mechjeb's KErbal Engineer functionality was telling me it had a frankly insane Delta-V of 10,000 m/s, so if that was ANYWHERE close to accurate, I'm sure the extra fuel is entirely unnecessary... (The extra fuel is actually mostly for stability/control reasons- by stretching the tank upwards, to compensate for the lander otherwise becoming bottom-heavy if I detach the lander with only a partial fuel load..)

(The redesigned upper stage.)

For those of you wondering why I'm doing this, I'm doing it for the Science Points, frankly. I've never landed any Kerbals on several of the Mun's biomes, including the Munar poles, and I hope to accumulate some more Science towards fusion reactors (and the greatly improved thrust and electrical generation opportunities they offer, not to mention the reduced radiation hazard- from a roleplaying perspective) this way...

Regards,

Northstar

Edited January 31, 2014 by Northstar1989

[Northstar1989]

The Light Munar Explorer lifted off successfully, this time without any unplanned dis-assembly issues on the edge of the atmosphere, like in Bill's "nightmare", and is on its way to the Mun- where the plan is to put it in a polar orbit, so that it can make multiple drops of the lander module to collect soil samples and such form various different biomes (until the lander runs out of fuel- I didn't include any way to refuel it. That's partially because having Kerbals on ladders disables time-acceleration, and I'm fairly confident I would get fed up with the long wait-times for repeated rendezvous by the time it runs out of fuel...

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Also, the Minmus Spacedock continues on its journey to Minmus to refuel the Raven, and possibly deploy a small Minmus base and some resource-survey satellites to locate deposits of Ore and Kethane (I also need to set up some similar satellites around the Mun- before deciding on a base location) after I send some RocketParts tankers to restock it...

The Minmus Spacedock will be making an adjustment burn after about a third of a day (9 hours) of game time from the current moment (and perhaps real-life time too, as I might take a break from the game before then). I might or might not provide you guys with screenshots of that- so don't be disappointed if I don't upload anything on it to this thread...

Regards,

Northstar

Edited January 31, 2014 by Northstar1989

[Specialist290]

My apologies for not posting over the last few weeks. My internet connection has been experiencing (partially self-inflicted, I'll admit) technical difficulties.

As always, I'm impressed by the level of detail and imagination you put into your reports. I especially like the way you managed to work a reverted flight into the narrative by portraying it as a dream Bill had in-universe

[Northstar1989]

My apologies for not posting over the last few weeks. My internet connection has been experiencing (partially self-inflicted, I'll admit) technical difficulties.

As always, I'm impressed by the level of detail and imagination you put into your reports. I especially like the way you managed to work a reverted flight into the narrative by portraying it as a dream Bill had in-universe

No worries man. It's not like you NEED to post, although it's certainly always nice to hear from you.

By the way, coming up next: updates, updates, an mo' mods!

I've decided to add BoatParts for the aircraft carrier parts and designs it offers- after trying unsuccessfully to build one of my own out of mostly NovaPunch2 and B9 Aerospace parts (no pics, sorry)... The part-counts on my own design were getting horrendous (74 parts- at least 40 of them struts, and it still kept falling apart before it even made it to water- and all for a tiny carrier design that would be very lucky not to capsize if a small 8-ton helicopter landed on it...)

I've also decided to try out Infernal Robotics, and Ferram's Kerbal Joint Reinforcement...

[Speeding Mullet]

I read through this whole mission report last night, it's very nicely done! I like how you make use of the dead time with multiple missions and as Specialist290 says, impressed by the level of detail all the way through. Will keep reading!

[Northstar1989]

I read through this whole mission report last night, it's very nicely done! I like how you make use of the dead time with multiple missions and as Specialist290 says, impressed by the level of detail all the way through. Will keep reading!

Thanks! I'm glad you've been enjoying it!

At the moment, I just finished some mod updates/additions. It looks like my CPU is pushed to its limit running this many mods though. Already, I;m experiencing some serious slowdown at the main KSC screen and in R&D. Installing Infernal Robotics and Boat Parts might've been a mistake. Just to make it a little more manageable, I went and deleted all the Firespitter biplane parts, and Boat Parts submarine parts- since I plan on never building any WWI-style biplanes or modern nuclear missile subs... I'll probably be weeding out most of the WWII-era Firespitter parts as well- really all I want from the Firespitter mod is the helicopter and plane rotors, and a few of the landing gears...

Don't be surprised if my rate of progress is a little slowed while I deal with the lag situation. I'm going to try looking into the memory fix mod out there that supposedly reduces the CPU usage loading the stock parts...

Regards,

Northstar

EDIT: OK, so, the BoatParts mod was lagging my game too much, and I couldn't get the pre-designed aircraft carrier to load for some reason (I might have accidentally deleted a file needed for it when clearing out the submarine files). So, I decided to clear it out- as well as Infernal Robotics. I simply have too many mods installed, and can't afford any more memory usage... I am keeping Ferram's join reinforcement plugin though- I'm sick of decouplers basically being made of rubber, and engines freely and unrealistically sliding around under my heavier rockets unless I strut them like mad (and sometimes even then...)

Edited February 2, 2014 by Northstar1989

[Northstar1989]

For those of you curious what my latest side-project has been in the mission dead-time, I suggest you check out the HELO Challenge thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/66633-The-HELO-challenge

Here's a teaser- THESE are images I took of craft I designed in it:

Now go and view that thread, instead of making me re-post all the progress I made in the challenge here!

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/66633-The-HELO-challenge

Regards,

Northstar

[Northstar1989]

For those of you who didn't take my advice, and go look at the HELO Challenge thread; one of the craft I designed for it was the HELO (High Electricity Large Ornithopter) Model B- the big one in the teaser pictures before.

And, still wanting to build that mountain base I talked about before, I decided it was the perfect craft for the job.

So, I decided to first launch a copy of the HELO: B, and move it off the runway, and then build an Extraplanetary Launchpads launchpad, and hook it up...

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Turned out to be harder than I thought- as the winch and connector port were both a little too high for the Kerbal to reach (I wish I had at least thought to lower the winch end a meter or two when trying to grab it in the first place...) But after quite a few tries at having the Kerbal jump and grab the winch or connect the adapter at the same time, I finally managed to get the helicopter connected to the launchpad.

Then came the fun part- trying to get the launchpad into a stable flight regimen.

At first, I tried extending the winch to its maximum length, positioning the helicopter directly over the launchpad, and lifting straight up. Once I got the launchpad vertical (not that hard actually) the challenging part was trying to fly with it. But I soon discovered the asymmetric mass-loading from having the cargo bays on each side of the Center of Mass (earlier designs had a single external winch directly beneath the Center of Mass, but I soon discovered that its clearance was too low- and if the landing legs clipped even a little into the ground it would tend to fall off...) consistently caused the chopper to crash:

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I bet those Kerbals are glad I choose a cockpit with high impact-tolerance right now (and the ones at the KSC glad I only took the 3 Kerbals along necessary to fill the cockpit- the 4th Kerbal I recovered after attaching the winch, as he couldn't make it back on top of the chopper to the passenger hatch under Kerbin gravity).

Then I tried something a little different- dragging the launchpad off the runway so I could launch another payload (Rocketparts for the launchpad) of equal mass and hook that up to the other cargo bay...

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Dragging the launchpad eventually worked (not shown: the several times the structural panels fell off, or even the entire launchpad exploded from a slight bump- even though it has high impact tolerance. Thank God for F5/F9...)

However, then I had the brilliant idea- why not try hooking up the launchpad by BOTH its radial connector ports (placed in 2x symmetry) first, to see if that worked...

And... the cable didn't reach to the other side- but that's alright, I probably couldn't have gotten my Kerbal on top of the thing to reach the other radial port anyways, and would have had to flip the thing over to make a 2nd connection. This way, I just hooked the launchpad with two cables at very close to the same point- still ensuring a more or less equal distribution of tension in both the cables equidistant on each side of the Center of Mass... (thus avoiding any net-torque)

So... the result was:

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SUCCESS! Well, sort of. I did lose two of the structural panels in one of my first attempts pulling the launchpad off the ground- but I manged to get it off the ground intact in a later try...

NOW, comes the equally daunting task of safely hauling this bulky (if relatively light- only a bit over 5 tons in all) thing up to a good spot high in the mountains near the KSC, and setting it down safely...

Regards,

Northstar

P.S. Some of you might have noticed that I have the launchpad much closer to the body of the helicopter in the last picture than when I was lifting it. That was no accident. I was experiencing severe pendulum-like motion with the cables out at 50 meters, and I had to shorten them both in so that the launchpad wouldn't be capable of gaining nearly as much angular momentum.

Edited February 3, 2014 by Northstar1989

[Northstar1989]

OK, so attempting an important airlift like this at night without any lights was a major mistake...

At first things seemed to be going well, if slowly:

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Until I managed to crash into the side of the mountaintop the first time, knocking off all the structural panels (hey, they have an impact tolerance of 80 m/s- apparently they did some good!)

And then come down too fast a second time when I kept switching between a zoomed-out view and close-up view, trying to see how far down the ground was (a radar altimeter or night-vision would have been REALLY nice here, if only there was an IVA view for the Mk5 cockpit from B9... OH WAIT, I could have just used MechJeb's built-in altimeter functionality in "Surface Info"- darn!)

I'm *REALLY* annoyed with this- that airlift took between 90 and 120 minutes with FPS slowdown (and no time-warp), only to result in nothing... I'll have wait until just before dawn and try it again (the morning light is the best time to see terrain contrast).

In the meantime, I think I might take a faster, more maneuverable scout plane I can use time-warp on, and see if I can't plant a flag on a good landing spot, so it'll be easier to find if I start my airlift too far before dawn... (it was about 2 AM game time when I get in near the mountains- about the same time it is here in real life- aka. time for me to sleep soon).

Regards,

Northstar

Edited February 3, 2014 by Northstar1989

[Northstar1989]

So, my experiments with VTOL planes have been going pretty well. Here's a test-flight of what I'm still referring to at the Experimental VTOL Mk2 scouting around the mountains where the HELO B crashed before- I haven't yet given here a proper name:

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She handles like a beauty in her current form- though this led me to become a little cocky and attempt a very tricky maneuver I accidentally discovered she can pull off where she literally flips around in-flight to face retrograde, and burns her engines to slow down (useful for VTOL landing). It didn't work so well that time though- the flip went fine, but for some reason she was unstable flying in reverse (I know, right? ), and ended up developing a spin I couldn't control and crashing into the mountainside...

A revert later (it was all a "simulation") I'm ready to give her a proper name and see if I can't pull off a proper VTOL landing there being more careful...

Regards,

Northstar

Edited February 7, 2014 by Northstar1989

[Specialist290]

Impressive work on that VTOL (though it's a shame there's no daytime screenshots of it...). I've always wanted to mess around with those, but I'll have to improve my skills with spaceplanes in general first.

[Northstar1989]

it's a shame there's no daytime screenshots of it...

Actually, there are- a couple anyways. These are from a circumnavigation flight I performed with the K-5 Blackbird. Too bad I discovered its balance when performing a VTOL landing or very low-speed glides is a little off on an empty fuel tank... (after the flight was over and it was time to land) I'll need to consider removing the third engine, switching the fuel to drop-tanks, and seeing if I can balance it properly before trying that again...

And, the mandatory awesome high-speed picture- this was from all in-atmosphere flying, no suborbital hops... (that thing can fly FAST!)

Regards,

Northstar

Edited February 7, 2014 by Northstar1989

[Northstar1989]

OK everyone, so I've started nagging FractalUK (the creator/developer of KSP-Interstellar mod) to make some improvements to his In-Situ Resource Utilization system: as it currently stands, it has numerous flaws and shortcomings, such as the only included major ISRU reaction for standard fuel production being the Sabatier Reaction- which produces TWICE times as much Methane as you can burn with the oxygen it produces. KSP-Interstellar currently automatically electrolyzes the water the Sabatier Reaction produces, for oxygen (the Sabatier Reaction: CO2 + 4 H2 --> CH4 + 2 H2O + Energy), which is actually something else I've been bugging him to change- as you might want to utilize that water for other things instead...

I've been bugging FractalUK to include reactions like the Reverse Water Gas Shift reaction (RWGS: CO2 + H2 + Energy --> CO + H2O) in KSP-Interstellar, which would circumvent any wasteful production of methane you don't have enough oxygen to burn (Methane burns as: CH4 + 2 O2 --> CO2 + 2 H2O), and with electrolysis of the water (2 H2O + Energy --> 2 H2 + O2) allows net production of oxygen without any wasted hydrogen (2 CO2 --> 2 CO + O2) to burn the surplus methane from the Sabatier Reaction, or run any life-support mods you might be running...

So, if you're passionate about In-Situ Resource Utilization (I am- that's a big part of why I'm trying to make my Duna colony self-sustaining), or you just want to help me out here; read up on the topic on the thread I started on it, and then go bug FractalUK on his KSP-Interstellar thread to include some of these reactions and fix the existing ones! (his reaction for Monopropellant/Hydrazine production, for instance, requires more Ammonia than the real-life equation, and as far as I can tell doesn't produce any Water as a byproduct!)

My thread on ISRU: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/68797-In-Situ-Resource-Utilization-Useful-Reactions

FractalUK's KSP-Interstellar Thread (link is to page 646): http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/43839-0-23-KSP-Interstellar-%28Thermal-Helper-Solar-Sail-Impactors-Fusion%29-Version-0-10-3/page646

I don't think FractalUK will do anything if it's *JUST* me bugging for improvement of KSP-Interstellar's In-Situ Resource Utilization system, but if enough people *RESPECTFULLY* clamor for it, I'm pretty sure he'll listen...

Regards,

Northstar

P.S. While you're at it, I *highly* recommend going and downloading KSP-Interstellar, which even with its flaws is an awesome mod! Just follow the link I provided, skip to the first page, and you'll find a download link... Even while you're clamoring for its improvement, be *SURE* to thank FractalUK for creating his awesome mod!

Edited February 8, 2014 by Northstar1989

[Northstar1989]

Aside about ISRU over, here's what I've been up to lately:

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That's right everybody, I did it! I practically shouted in joy when I finally managed to land that Launchpad on the top of one of the mountains west of the KSC... It is currently placed roughly 4630 meters above Kerbin Sea Level, on a slope of approximately 5 degrees to the horizon.

I unloaded all 3 of the Kerbals on board the HELO:B and recovered the copter (rather than fly it back to the KSC), and am loading up another HELO B with a load of RocketParts to connect to the Launchpad.

After that, I won't have to perform any more trips though- rather than carrying out literally dozens or hundreds of supply runs to the mountaintop to carry up all the parts needed for future launches piece by piece, I'm just going to be using TAC Fuel Balancer to repeatedly edit full the RocketParts and LFO storage containers I set up connected to the Launchpad by KAS port. I'll still be having to run up crew for my launches (there's no way to spawn them at the mountain launchpad), so it won't be THAT easy...

Regards,

Northstar

Edited February 8, 2014 by Northstar1989